C O M M U N IC A TIO N REVIEW
A Journal of the Department of Mass Communication, University of Lagos
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Communication Review (formerly UNILAG Communication Review) is a doubled peer-reviewed journal published by the Department of Mass Communication, University of Lagos, Lagos, Nigeria.
ISSN 1596-7077
Editor-in-Chief: Prof. Ralph A. Akinfeleye
Page layout/cover design: Mr. Adewusi AbdulGaniyu Co-ordinating Editors: Dr. Oloruntola Sunday
Dr. Theresa 1. Amobi Editorial Board-National and International
Prof. Douglas Anderson- Pennstate University, Pennsylvania, USA
Prof. Daniel Awodiya- Suffolk County Community College, Brentwood, Long Island, New York, 11717
Prof. David Edeani- Enugu State University o f Science and Technology, Enugu Prof. A. Sambe- Benue State University, Makurdi
Prof. Umaru Pate- University o f Maiduguri, Maiduguri
Prof. Kwasi Ansah- Kyaremeh- School o f Communication Studies, University o f Ghana, Legon, Accra
Prof. Audre Gadzekpo- Director, School o f Comm. Studies, University o f Ghana, Legon, Accra
Prof. Jerry Damatop- University o f Mississippi, USA
Prof. Lai Oso- Dept. Journalism, Lagos State University, Ojo, Lagos Prof. Idowu Sobowale- Covenant University. Ota
Chair & Head O f Department Prof. Ralph A. Akinfeleye CALL FOR PAPERS
Papers on any aspect of Journalism and Mass communication (print, broadcast, public relations and advertising, and new media) are hereby solicited in the next issue o f Communication Review (CR).
Note the following additional information:
1. Papers should be submitted in the latest version of M.S. Word on CD with two Separate copies on white paper using double spacing.
2. Papers should not exceed 7,000 words.
3. papers should have a cover page bearing the title of the article, the name o f the author, address, status/present position and research interest.
4. An abstract o f not more than 200 words should follow the cover page.
5. References should be in A.P.A. Style
6. Any paper submitted should not be presented to any other publication.
7. All papers must undergo blind referring (outside UNILAG).
For further information contact:
The Editor
Communication Review
Department o f Mass Communication University o f Lagos, Nigeria.
Tel: +2348023029001, +2348033205565 E-mail: [email protected]
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Contents
1 Ralph A. Akinfeleye & Dr. Ismail A. Ibraheem
Communicating the risk o f diabetes in Nigeria: Bridging gaps between research and policy
19 KhadijatAledeh
The use o f traditional channels o f communications in the mobilization campaign for the house to house immunization programme in Estako West Local Government Area o f Edo State 52
Oloruntola A. Sunday & Solomon S. Tommy
Media advocacy and sustainable health 72 IfeomaT.Amobi
Communication process and outcomes: a study o f the response o f pregnant women in Lagos State to communication campaign messages on the use o f insecticide treated for malaria preventation 104 Ralph A. Akinfeleye & Adepate Rahmat Mustapha-Koiki
Women filmakers and harmful traditional practices in Nigeria 122 SojiAlabi
Health communication and disease control analysis o f the communication strategies in the control o f Avian influenza in Ekiti State
134 OlubunmiAjibade
Comparative analysis o f ACADA and P-process models o f communication planning in health-related interventions in Nigeria 154 DerinK . O logbenla& I. S.Popoola
Response o f nursing mothers to media campaign on breastfeeding 175 Ibi Agiobu-Kemmer & Motunrayo Labinjo
Incidence o f child sexual abuse in three Local Government Areas o f Lagos State
192 KobloweObono
From transmission to transaction: toward network models for effective health communication in Nigeria
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FROM TRANSMISSION TO TRANSACTION:
TOWARD NETWORK MODELS FOR EFFECTIVE HEALTH COMMUNICATION IN NIGERIA
Koblowe Obono
Abstract
The paper examines health communication as an evolving process from linear transmission to transactional discourse, a parpdigm shift fo r the attainment o f meaningful, understandable and effective health knowledge acquisition in Nigeria. This holistic approach o f in fo rm a tio n d issem in a tio n am ong p e o p le w ith d iv erse socioeconomic, demographic and cultural background addresses the complexity o f human communication. The interest in network models, including Agency Health Transaction (AHT) and Convergence Models is in their nonlinear nature, which permits mutual negotiation and understanding o f health messages among
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discussants. Accordingly, agents o f communication can choose, negotiate and redefine norms based on active reasoning and strategizing. The position o f this paper is therefore that the utilization o f network models could lead to a relational perspective o f effective health communication. This approach has implications fo r sustainable health maintenance and development in Nigeria and across sub-Saharan African regions.
Key Words: Health Communication, Network Models, Agency, Transaction, Convergence
Introduction
Contemporary communication has been undergoing transformation from linear to transactional processes that combine traditional and modem communication technologies to achieve effective health communication. Even within media channels that were highly known for their transmission operations, some o f their health messages are now packaged to elicit interpersonal interaction, feedback and correspondence among senders and receivers to attain clarity and sharing o f understandable information. In other words, there is a paradigm shift from traditional transmission to modern transactional processes that produce maximum performance and effectiveness o f health information dissemination in Nigeria. Health communication is thus processual, spiral and dynamic but not static.
The communication is gradually shifting away from linear to network models for their participatory, interactional, transactional and convergence o f media structures and communication agents.
The interface of the linear, agency health transaction and
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Koblowe Obonoconvergence models o f communication result to meaningful transition of health issues for human health development in Nigeria.
Communication models as found in this paper offer a convenient way to think about communication by their provision o f a graphical checklist which can be used to create anything from speech to a major health campaign. As a result o f the proliferation o f mass communications via radio, movies, television, print, online, outdoor, and empirical scientific methods, modem communication models reflect the holistic processes involved in health communication across media, communicators and the sociocultural contexts within which they occur.
As information-related behaviour, communication is a necessary life process through which human systems acquires information that is functional for making decisions concerning their health, environment, life aspirations and actions. The three common settings o f communication that could be integrated for effective health communication in Nigeria are interpersonal (face-to-face), machine-assisted (phone, computer), and mass communication (broadcast, print, outdoor). All o f these can be converged for transactional effective health discourse o f messages among communicators.
Theorists have proposed various models o f communication.
The Linear models which traditionally dominated communication research are limited in certain respects, hence, the emergence of more holistic models that could capture the different sides of social reality. Contemporary network models thus address the complexity o f the communication processes involved in health information
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Koblowe Obono i c a dissemination in Nigeria. In linear models, the individual is the unit of analysis and information flow is unidirectional relative but in network models, information exchange relationships are the unit of analysis and the information flows as a spiral. The present paper thus discusses a paradigm o f communication as a cyclical process of convergence for effective health communication. This would have implications for appropriate dissemination of information for human health development in Nigeria.
Transitions of communication processes in linear models
Communication research was dominated by the linear models which are referred to as transmission models o f communication. One of the most often cited was advanced by Harold Lasswell in 1948. a political scientist, who proposed a linear model that explains the communication process as "Who says what to whom in what channel with what effect." Lasswell's model was an outgrowth o f his work on propaganda, which focused primarily on verbal communication just as Aristotle's. The model (Figure 1) is a simple description o f one-way communication process, comprising a speaker who communicates a message to a receiver by making use o f any o f the media like print, radio, television, among others, to finally convey the information. The model emphasized the elements of speaker, message, and audience and viewed communication as a one-way process in which one individual influences others through messages. The addition o f the channel as a specific element was a response to the growth in new communication media, such as print, the telegraph, the radio, etc, while “effect” was an important break
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with past models which served mainly descriptive purposes.
WHO SAYS
WHAT IN WHICH
CHANNEL TO
WHOM
WITH WHAT EFFECT?
COMMUNICATOR MESSAGE MEDIUM RECEIVER EFFECT
Figure 1: Harold Lasswell's model
Lasswell's (1948) approach also provided a more generalized view o f the goal or effect o f communication than did the Aristotelian perspective. His work suggested that there could be a variety of outcomes or effects o f communication such as to inform, to entertain, to aggravate, and to persuade. Although this model is easy, simpleand suitable for almost all types of communication, it is limited in feedback and noise. Hence, about a year after he published his view, Claude Shannon, the father of Information Theory, published some work he had done for Bell Telephone and this formed the basis for the Shannon and Weaver model (1949).
Shannon and Weaver model measures the accuracy o f message transmission in a given communication system by not^equating information with meaning. Communication is used in a very broad sense to include all the procedures by which one mind affects another. This is not limited to written and oral speech, but music, pictorial arts, theatre, ballet, and all human behaviour. Shannon and Weaver introduced the term “noise”, to label any distortion that interfered with the transmission of a signal from the source to the destination. They also advanced the notion o f a "correction channel,"
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which was regarded as a means o f overcoming problems created by noise. The correction channel was operated by an observer who compared the initial signal sent with the one received. When the two did not agree, additional signals are transmitted to correct the error.
The academic field of communication began when Claude Shannon and Warren Weaver published The Mathematical Theory of Communication. Their model is essentially a linear, left-to-right, one-way model of communication. The limitation is in its dealing with only mechanistic representation o f communication and not with meaning, content, substance and feedback. Despite the gaps, it led to technical improvements in message transmission. Shannon and Weaver's most important contribution was their concept of information, which provided a central focus to the new field of communication research and became the main conceptual variable around which the new intellectual approach began to grow.
Wilbur Schramm provided several additional models in 1954 with the first being an elaboration of Shannon's. Schramm (1954) saw communication as a purposeful effort to establish commonness between a source and receiver, noting that the word communication is from the Latin communis, which means common. His second model is far more aware o f the subtleties involved in communication.
Without a common background and culture, there is little chance for a message to be interpreted correctly. He thus introduced the concept of a field o f experience, which was essential in determining whether or not a message would be received at its destination in the manner intended by the source. Schramm contended that without common fields o f experience - a common language, common backgrounds, a
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common culture, and so forth - there was little chance for a message to be interpreted correctly.
Schramm's third model is a departure from the conventional linear approaches but based on the network approach. Due to various kinds of noise, there are chances that the message gets distorted and to overcome this problem, he introduced the concept of feedback. The communication process now takes a circular form as both parties take on the roles of sender and recipient. To overcome the problem of noise, he suggested feedback as "an experienced communicator is attentive to feedback and constantly modifying his messages in light of what he observes in or hears from his audience". Hence, in Figure 2, the roles o f sender and recipient are taken on by both parties, and communication becomes circular. It creates a relational model of communication and a beginning o f a network approach.
Schramm's view o f communication was more elaborate than many others developed during this period as it added new elements in describing the process. In addition to re-emphasizing the elements of source, message, and destination, it suggested the importance o f the coding and decoding process and the role o f field experience.
Figure 2: Wilbur Schramm communication model (1954)
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The linear, one-way approaches of communication had peculiar shortcomings as the receiver was passive and did not have any input in the communication process but only consumed message sent by the source. The sender became the principal and active element that determined what was said, how it was said, where it was said and with whom it was said. The sender, in the linear model, is so powerful but could not ascertain the effectiveness of the communication encounter. His sole interest is to transfer, transmit or convey messages to his “subordinate” in a straight jacketed approach, making noise a consistent and inevitable feature of communication.
In the social world however, things do not always happen in this simplistic linear manner because actors engage in relationships witl other actors in facing practical problems. This is because “the actors seek to reach an understanding about their action situation and their plans of action in order to coordinate their actions by way of agreement” (Harbermas, 1984:86). Actors thus reach mutual understanding by using speech effectively to bridge perceived communication gaps in media and agents. This would have implications for a more robust and practical health discussions.
Network Models: Agency Health 'Transaction and Convergence
M odern com m unication approaches have adopted more comprehensive and holistic perspective for easy dissemination of inform ation across people w ith diverse socioeconom ic, demographic, religious, political and cultural backgrounds. The interest in network models is their nonlinear nature where
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communicators strive to reach mutual understanding, intelligibility and action. These models are particularly popular among proponents o f development communication. Health communication is thus evolving from transmissions to simultaneous transactions among media and participants to attain meaningful and understandable conclusions.
A consideration of the context of communication is essential for intelligible discourse. In this regard, communication is not approached as the transfer o f information from the active mass media to a passive audience but rather, a paradigm shift to a cyclical process o f convergence and transactions. The convergence model permits integration of broadcast, print, outdoor, online, and indigenous media for easy availability, affordability, accessibility, and comprehension of health messages by ruralites or urbanites, literate or non-literate, rich or poor as well as amongst peoples from all walks o f life. This approach accommodates the complexities involved in the dynamic nature of communication. Hence, health messages are not just transmitted but transacted in forms that communicators are trans-receivers and active in creating meaning and sharing understandable messages using the SWOT analysis. Accordingly,
\
effective health communication is a dynamic and continuous process o f acting, reacting and transacting issues of needs, adoption and challenges for health improvement.
Agency Health Transaction (AHT) Model is a network communication where participants create meaning through their interaction with the social environments and media structures (Figure 3). It includes the meanings that subjects give to their
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behaviour and reasons or motives for acting. AHT extends to the way in which meanings are communicated and how stable intersubjective social worlds are established. Here, society is viewed as a human construction which constantly changes with people's perception and motivational inputs. Agents have the ability to choose, negotiate and redefine norms and actions about health communication based on their reasoning and motives as individuals in the social universe.
They possess the ability to actively explore channels and transactional activities to maximize their goals.
The communication is conceptualized as a dynamic process that involves the simultaneous sending and receiving o f messages among elements to attain sharing of meaning. This approach is important because it com bines traditional and m odern system s o f communication for transactional encounters since the use o f a single approach may limit intended communication outcomes.
This communication is conceptualized as a complex activity without an easily defined beginning or ending but a process involving the giving and receiving o f information that results into action that would be beneficial to human participants. It is actualized through
\
active strategizing and information flow among participants with contextual linkages to past and modem media connections. The interaction o f traditional and modern media structures and agents therefore produce and share meaningful information for the attainment of mutual understanding and human action
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Koblowe Obono
]
H I H [
Traditional
Mother
AGENCY
.2 o
m ro Daughter
Active strategizers
Socializing Agents: Schooling, Media, Peers, etc
Premarital Sex, Contraception, Abortion, STIs & HIV/AIDS HHIV?AIDSHHIhHHHIV/AID: >
Functional Prerequisites:
Figure 3: Agency Heath Transaction Model
SW O T
Modern Context
Adapted from Obono (2008)
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Koblowe Obono liT T E I
The communication is collaborative as agents and agencies do not impose health ideas on others but they engage in constant negotiation based on social contexts and networks. This facilitates freedom of speech, clarity o f discourse and understanding of health matters from diverse viewpoints. This does not suggest that effective health communication is achieved through smooth and tension-free procedures but rather, conflicting ideas are resolved through reasoning and negotiations among agents. The model reflects the complex activity that produces actions that are beneficial to human participants and promotes systematic and dynamic swapping o f roles among senders and receivers of messages at different points of discourse.
From Obono's Agency Transaction Model, the dynamic interaction and co-existence o f the macro and micro social worlds show that traditional and modern contexts co-exist at the macro level, producing dialectical transactions and connections.
Information sharing that originates from indigenous and exogenous media platforms and sources would positively affect human knowledge, attitudes, beliefs and practices for effective health development. The model also clarifies the activities taking place at the micro level where human agents and social agencies transact to actualize healthy outcomes.
Kincaid's Convergence Model (Figure 4) also views communication as a process rather than a single event. It is based upon the principle of convergence as derived from basic information theory and cybernetics, emphasizing information exchange and networks that exist among individuals. Information and mutual
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understanding are the dominant components o f the convergence model and the communication enables cultural processes to be subsumed within the laws o f thermodynamics. It predicts that members of a social system who share information with one another about a given topic will over time develop more similar conceptions of that topic (Kincaid et al, 1983). In other words, several cycles of information-sharing about a health topic may increase mutual understanding.
PSYCHOLOGICAL REALITY
A
PHYSICAL REALITY PSYCHOLOGICAL REALITY
B
INFORMATION ~
Understandin g
Collective
Believing __ At ,ion _ Believing
Mutual Agreement
MUTUAL UNDERSTANDING
SOCIAL REAtXTB
Understandin — 8
Figure 4: Basic Components o f the Convergence Model of Communication
Adapted from Kincaid (1979)
All information is a consequence o f action and through the
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Koblowe Obono E a various stages o f human information-processing, action may become the consequence of information. The unity of information and action is indicated by three lines above: information-action- believing; information-collection action; and information-action- believing. A similar unity underlies the relationship among all of the basic components o f the convergence model. Only the mutually defining relationship among the parts gives meaning to the whole.
Information processing at the human level involves perceiving, interpreting, understanding, believing, and action, which creates new information for further processing. When this information is shared by the participants, information-processing may lead to mutual understanding, mutual agreement and collective action.
The advantage o f a cybernetic explanation is the uses of the concepts o f information, feedback, networks, and purpose. It shows information as fundamental and critical in human communication and portrays how collective action of communicators would lead to mutual agreement and understanding of health in social reality. The model uses a contextual approach to meaning rather than a referential one (Wittgenstein, 1958). A word is therefore given meaning based on its specific context, and variety of meaning is a necessary aspect of human communication.
Once the interpretation and understanding o f information is raised to the level of shared interpretation and mutual understanding, what was once considered as individual information-processing becomes human communication among persons who hold the common purpose o f understanding one another. Hence, information shared by the participants may lead to collective action, mutual
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agreement and mutual understanding of health issues.
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A Synthesis
Agency Health Transaction and Convergence models agree at the micro levels of communication with their emphasis for production o f meaningful information. Human beings derive meaning from their interaction with others and such meanings are the basis for human action. Continual communication is necessary to maintain a requisite level o f convergence o f meaning for sustainable collective action. The models are unique in their departure from the linear, one-way approaches that have failed to accommodate the complexity o f the communication processes. They show the interrelationships between agents, information, action, agreement and mutual understanding. According to Rogers and Kincaid (1981), truth value of a word is determined by its projection from a medium o f interpersonal exchange onto an external domain, the world of action and events. It cannot be adequately determined until they reach some appropriate level of mutual understanding o f meaning which influences people's actions.
% Convergence and Agency Health Transaction models represent human communication as a dynamic, cyclical process, characterized by mutual causation, rather than one-way mechanistic causation. They emphasize the interdependent relationship o f the participants, rather than a bias toward either the "source" or the
"receiver" o f a message. Mutual understanding and agreement are the primary goals o f the communication process and they points toward involvement of participants converge or diverge over time.
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The models lead to a relational perspective of human communication because of the shift to the content that is created and shared by participants.
Acknowledging the role o f interpretive processes that occur within individuals, Lawrence Kincaid (and later Everett Rogers and Kincaid) emphasized the information exchanges and networks between them. Systematically packaged and conveyed messages through proper channels could lead to timely deliverance o f the information to relevant recipients.
Conclusion
Communication was traditionally seen as the sending of messages from source to receiver through a channel. The linear, one
way approaches had their shortcomings as the receiver o f the message was passive and did not have any input in the communication process but only acted upon jthe messages sent.
Communication was a mere transmission but^network approaches present communication as a transactional process as shown in Agency Health Transaction and Convergence models. The difference lies in the fact that while some of the elements in the former are passive; all elements in the latter are active due to the unlimited interaction that occur among them, resulting to meaningful and understandable information that leads to action.
Traditionally, message termination was the easiest to
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determine in mass communication but its integration with interpersonal communication has changed this operational outlook, providing immediate feedback through different techniques. The convergence of media and agents in a transactional communication environment produces health information that is meaningful to senders and receivers who swap roles during such encounter.
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References
Habermas, J. (1984). The Theory o f Communication Action, Vol. 1.
London: Heinemann.
Kincaid, D. Lawrence. (1979). "The Convergence Model of Communication”. Honolulu, East-West Communication Institute, Paper 18.
Kincaid, D. L., J. O. Yum, J. Woelfel and G. A. Barnett. (1983). The cultural convergence o f Korean immigrants in Hawaii: an empirical test o f a mathematical theory. Qual Quant Journal 18:57-78.
Lasswell, Harold. (1948). The structure and function o f communication in society. The Communication o f Ideas. L.
Bryson. Ed. New York: Institute for Religions.
Obono, K. (2008). Reproductive change and communication among mothers and daughters in Ugep, Nigeria. Unpublished PhD Thesis. University o f Ibadan.
Schramm, Wilbur. (1954). The Process and Effects o f Communication. Urbana: University o f Illinois Press.
Shannon, Claude and Weaver, Warren. (1949). The Mathematical Theory o f Communication. Urbana: Lfniversity of Illinois Press.
Wittgenstein, Ludwig. (1958). Philosophical Investigations, translated by G.E.M. Anscombe, Oxford, England, Blackwell.